Present Tense
Songs for old-timers: veteran singersongwriter mixes anguish and tenderness. By Terry Staunton
Graham Nash Now ★★★★
BMG 4050538888829 (LP, CD)
Early on Nash’s first album in seven years there’s a song that’s likely to transport longstanding fans back through the decades, triggering thoughts of the singer-songwriter’s fallen comrade David Crosby. A Better Life returns to the terrain of Teach Your Children, the 1970 hit he and Croz recorded with Stephen Stills and Neil Young, its message advocating the passing on of positive vibes to future generations.
The chief difference here, though, is the man who cut his teeth on the harmony pop of The Hollies prior to the beautiful vocal blends of CSN&Y goes it alone for the most part, multi-tracking his sole voice to great effect and without losing any of the songs’ ability to entrance. The exception is Buddy’s Back, a paean to a boyhood rock ‘n’ roll hero, on which he shares the mic with his erstwhile Hollies co-founder Allan Clarke (the song also features on Clarke’s new album, I’ll Never Forget).
Such bygone excursions seem fitting for an artist whose current US tour flies under the banner 60 Years Of Songs And Stories, but as the album’s title suggests there’s more going on here than a nostalgia trip. Two songs in particular, sequenced together, allude to more modern states of affairs that have our Graham gnashing his teeth, as it were.
Golden Idol drips with venom, not specifically for Donald Trump but for the acolytes who still subscribe to his arrogant, ignorant and divisive politics (“They’re just like children who can’t stand losing, and the truth is getting in their way”). Its intent is not a million miles from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s infamous Nixonbating on Fortunate Son, albeit couched in a minor key Americana melody to (slightly) soften the rage.
“I can’t remember when my world was not on fire, when people live in fear of flames,” Nash laments on the country strum of Stars And Stripes, its title alluding to flag-waving fools ignoring the malaise of the nation’s shortcomings. He’s not without hope, mind, identifying the still active protest movement dedicated to betterment (“We’re slowly coming into the light”).
Elsewhere, his knack for articulating both the passions and pitfalls of love remains strong: Love Of Mine is a delicately balanced treatise of romance on the rocks but with foundations strong enough to pull through. It’s presumably a work of fiction, for there are other songs here that are clearly more autobiographical.
Set to the intimate piano of album co-producer and long-serving touring companion Todd Caldwell, When It Comes To You finds the 81-year-old singer speaking directly to his third wife, artist Amy Grantham, who he married in 2019. “You’re the very best thing that’s happened to me,” declares the old-timer, adding “and at this point in my life that’s something to say.”
It would be outlandish to claim Now breaks any significant new ground, but it’s perhaps a better record than anyone might have expected from such a veteran performer. CSN&Y fans in particular will find its contents attractive and reassuring, and it could potentially pique the interests of those previously unfamiliar with Nash’s work. He continues to teach the children well.